Everyone knows that to get a good deal on a new car, you have to negotiate a good price and secure a good financing rate. Fewer buyers consider predicted resale value in the quest to get the most for their money, but a $25,000 new car with strong resale value can actually cost less over a short three-year ownership cycle than a $20,000 car with poor resale value. The car you choose can be more important than the terms you negotiate.

The annual Kelley Blue Book Best Resale Value Awards recognize automakers' outstanding achievements in producing new vehicles that best maintain their appeal after five years of ownership. Check out the overall champions here, then find out which cars took top resale honors in the segments you're shopping.

I’ve got an ‘07 Legacy GT Limited wagon, great all around car, solid as a rock, love the boxer four, smooth as a V-6, very fast. Decent mileage, drives like it’s on rails but still manages to ride reasonably well. Space for dogs and stuff.

If it’d run on regular, it’d be the perfect car. Pretty darn close even with needing 91 octane.

A Mahindra, looks sort of like a previous generation Tacoma. Built in India. Mahindra is known much more for farm tractors, all terrain offroad utility vehicles and such, importing street legal vehicles is new for them in the US.

Land Cruisers are absolutely excellent, but boy they are pricey nowadays - I bought my first FJ for only 26K and it was as loaded as FJ's can be [which doesn't mean a whole lot...] FJ's can take a beating. But I wish they'd have a V8 option.

I have a 2007 Jeep Patriot that has actually appreciated about $3000 in retail value.

The dealer actually sent me an email a few weeks ago wanting me to come in and trade. They were offering $500 more than the Blue Book trade-in — which would put it at about what I paid for it in early 2008.

Forget resale value. In 1999 I bought a 2000 Hyundai Elantra Wagon that now has 180K miles on the odo and is still going strong.

I now keep my vehicles until they can no longer be maintained. The last vehicle I had before that was a 1990 Plymouth Grand Voyager LE that had 255K miles. I gave it to a paper delivery guy and it is still his work vehicle with over 300K on it.

I will be buying a used vehicle for my son now that he is getting his license.

I drive a 1976 Olds Custom Cruiser. The sticker new was $5500. I could sell today for between $10k and $12k. That's about 100% resale over cost. Does Kelley factor in inflation or the collapse of the dollar? How about what the Cash for Clunkers did to the used car market. Buying for resale is a total gamble. Buy what you want and can afford.

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posted on 11/17/2010 3:47:55 PM PST
by Lazlo in PA
(Now living in a newly minted Red State.)

“I have a 2007 Jeep Patriot that has actually appreciated about $3000 in retail value.”

The Patriot is one of the most expensive vehicles to own according to an article I read about a month ago. I was once offered full price for a Nissan Frontier a year and a half after I bought it. The catch was I had to purchase another Nissan. I used to sell cars and I know how the numbers work.

Ford all the way.I dont like the jap stuff and I dont like the union stuff.I do have 225,000 miles on a 96 Mark VIII lincoln and I have not loved a car like this since my first car which was a 69 428 Cobra Jet Mach 1.That does go back a day or two.Besides Ford built B-24s and mitsubishi built A6M2 zeros.I wont ever forget that.

My mother bought a Toyota 4x4 truck brand new in 1993. She still drives it and it has 1,250,000 miles on it. Still fires right up. If I inherit that truck, I will never sell it. Overhaul the engine maybe but I’ll never sell.

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